Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1950
[Interviews of Principal at UltimateDallas from 2003 and 2007 (retrieved 2007-07-07) list 1950, as does the However, 1946 may be found listed in older Almanacs and many other sources, including Celebrity Index. 1945 has also been given in many sources, including YahooTV.]) is an
American actress, best known for her role as
Pamela Barnes Ewing on the long-running
CBS nighttime drama
Dallas from 1978 to 1987.
Biography
Early life
Principal was born in
Fukuoka,
Japan, the older of two daughters of Bertha Ree (née Veal) and Victor R. Principal. Principal gave a 1950 year of birth in a 2007 interview with the official
Dallas website. She stated that she "felt that was the only way to clear this up once and for all. My name is my real name; my age is my real age. Someone on the internet, years ago, printed a different age than I am and I’m in the process legally of clearing that up, because I have never lied about my age."
[Colin Hunter (2007). Interview UltimateDallas.com. Accessed 2007-07-07.]
Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from
Italy and her mother was of
English descent.
[Stated on Lifetime Television's Intimate Portrait] Her father was a sergeant in the
Air Force and like most
military brats, Principal moved often, growing up in
London,
Florida,
Puerto Rico,
Massachusetts, and
Georgia, among other places, and attending 17 different schools. She studied at the
Royal Academy of Ballet while in England.
She acted in a commercial when five, and began modeling in high school. She enrolled at
Miami-Dade Community College, intending to study
medicine. She continued modelling, winning the Miss Miami title in 1969, but serious injuries in a car crash made her refocus her energy on acting. She moved to
New York City, working as a model and actress. After a modelling job in Europe, she studied at
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and then moved to
Los Angeles in 1971.
[Biography. VictoriaPrincipal.com. Accessed 2007-06-15.]
Personal life
Principal dated numerous actors and personalities at the height of her fame in the late-1970s, including:
Andy Gibb (with whom she recorded a duet "All I Have To Do Is Dream" in 1981),
Steven Spielberg (during her work on
Earthquake and his pre-production on
Jaws), and
Frank Sinatra.
Principal met Christopher Skinner in 1978 when he played a bit role on
Dallas. After a very short time, she married him, but they divorced in 1980. In 1985, she married Hollywood plastic surgeon Dr. Harry Glassman after a three-year relationship. She has no
children from either marriage.
In January 2003, her husband was arrested on a
domestic violence charge. On May 27, 2006 she filed for divorce from her husband of 21 years, after they separated in March 2006 citing irreconcilable differences.
[Stephen M. Silverman and Howard Breuer (May 25, 2006). Victoria Principal Files for Divorce. People.com. Accessed 2007-06-15.]
On December 27, 2006 the divorce was finalized after Glassman, labeled "Dr. McGreedy" by the press, received Victoria Principal's Beverly Hills home and an estimated $25 million from Principal. Victoria Principal currently lives in
Malibu, with homes in Utah and Switzerland.
She is training for her booked flight on
Richard Branson's commercial space flight venture, and is scheduled to be one of the first female civilian astronauts in June 2010.
[Natalie Finn (April 17, 2007). Victoria to Be Principal Character in Space EOnline.com. Accessed 2007-06-15.]
Career
Acting
Her first film was as a Mexican mistress in
Paul Newman's
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) for which she earned a
Golden Globe Nomination as Most Promising Newcomer.
[The 30th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1973). GoldenGlobes. Accessed 2008-02-16.] Her next film was
The Naked Ape (1973) with
Johnny Crawford, in which she appeared topless (years later, on
The Tonight Show, she said that this was the worst movie of her career). That year she appeared in a nude
Playboy pictorial. She later claimed that she did not read the fine print for her contract for
The Naked Ape when she signed it, as it was the fine print that required her to do the nude pictorial.
In 1974, she landed a huge break when she was cast in a co-starring role in the successful
disaster film epic,
Earthquake. Principal continued to act in lesser known films such as
I Will, I Will...For Now and
Vigilante Force. In 1977,
Aaron Spelling offered her a role in the pilot of his television series
Fantasy Island. She accepted, and soon after she landed her most famous role, that of Pamela Barnes Ewing in the television series
Dallas in 1978.
Dallas became a huge global hit, making Principal a household name across the world. In 1983, she earned a Golden Globe Nomination as Best Actress in a Television Series.
[The 40th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1983). GoldenGlobes. Accessed 2008-02-16.]
After nine years, Principal decided to leave
Dallas in 1987. She then went on to star in various television movies such as
Mistress,
Blind Witness,
Naked Lie,
Sparks: The Price of Passion, and
Don't Touch My Daughter, some of which she co-produced. In 1994, she appeared in an episode of the hit sitcom
Home Improvement.
In late 1999, she and her
Dallas co-star
Patrick Duffy appeared in an episode of the animated series
Family Guy, in which they played their Dallas characters in a live-action section of episode (as opposed to animated) and parodied the infamous "Dallas shower scene" in which she dreamed up her
Dallas husband's death. In
the episode the show's family copes with the aftermath of a
nuclear holocaust on January 1, 2000. However, at the end of the episode it is revealed to have all been a dream of Pam Ewing's. The animated television series
South Park also features a school principal named
Principal Victoria, a play on the actress's name.
Principal returned to primetime soap operas in 2000 when she appeared in the shortlived
NBC TV series
Titans, produced by
Aaron Spelling.
Entrepreneur
When Principal signed her
Dallas contract, she omitted the clause that would have given the network the right to consent and profit from her outside endeavors. She explained, "As a result that’s why, you can only notice in hindsight, I was the only person in the cast who did commercials, who was doing movies of the week, who wrote books and these all belong to me. I retained the control and ownership of my image. No one owns me."
When she left the show in 1987, she began her own production company,
Victoria Principal Productions. In the mid-1980s, she became interested in natural beauty therapies and promoted a self-named line of skin care products called Principal Secret, and has also written three books about beauty and skin-care.
Filmography
Films
Television
- Last Hours Before Morning (1975)
- Fantasy Island (1977) (pilot for series)
- The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977)
- Dallas (cast member from 1978–1987)
- Hawaii Five-0, Episode "The Year of the Horse" (first aired 4/5/1979)
- Pleasure Palace (1980)
- Not Just Another Affair (1982)
- Mistress (1987)
- Naked Lie (1989)
- Blind Witness (1989)
- Sparks: The Price of Passion (1990)
- Don't Touch My Daughter (1991)
- The Burden of Proof (1992)
- Seduction: Three Tales from the Inner Sanctum (1992)
- River of Rage: The Taking of Maggie Keene (1993)
- Beyond Obsession (1994)
- Home Improvement (1994)
- Dancing in the Dark (1995)
- The Abduction (1996)
- Love in Another Town (1997)
- Titans (2000–2001)
